261
(ii).
That the duties involved are such that the
Office Hours, 9 to 5, do not cover the time necessary to perform
them.
With regard to (i), this is a matter out-
side my province to remark upon. In respect to (ii), I can state
positively that it is the rule rather than the exception for the
four senior Clerks to take their work home with them after
Office Hours.
5.
In his report for 1899, my predecessor
wrote as follows:-
-mittee as follows:-
"In 1894 I stated to the Retrenchment Com-
-
"The only way in which the enormous amount "of clerical work which goes on at the Harbour Office "ia done, is owing to the fact that the clerks at "work there the first, second, third, and fourth "are all men who have been in the Harbour Department "for upwards of 20 to 25 years. Shey have grown with "the work, and it is only because they have grown with "it that they are now able to do it".
"This statement I have now to reiterate,
though he was in
with one exception only, namely that the fourth clerk has only
been in the Office for one and a half years
the Opium Office branch 11 years previously he came in when the
1st. Clerk retired on pension in 1898, and there was a general 'fleet up' amongst the others on a diminished scale of pay".
"The work continues to increase with the
increase of shipping, to say nothing of territory, overtime work
is the rule rather than the exception, and any temporary absence
through sickness a condition which happily seldom happens
keenly felt by the others".
The above paragraph in italics, being a
V
is
statement made 11 years ago, is just as true at the present time. In endorsing it now, I have to add that two only of the clerks
there